Book review: Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

This is not that world.

Art student and monster's apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she'll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.

While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For hope.

But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream?

I was told that Days of Blood and Starlight was supposed to be even better than Daughter of Smoke and Bone, and I can definitely believe it.  The problem I had with Daughter of Smoke and Bone was that the romance was unrealistic, with no buildup for either Madrigal or Karou.  It made me less sympathetic with the characters when things went bad.

However, in Days of Blood and Starlight, the focus shifts from the romance that Daughter of Smoke and Bone was so intent on laying out.  It’s been completely dismantled, in fact, and the focus is put more on world building and the war between seraphim and chimera.  It’s refreshing. The book is full of twists and turns that keep you guessing.  The writing itself has changed; it’s not so much like a fairytale in most places.  The contents of this book are harsh, full of death and disappointment for the characters.  I guess what I’m saying is: this book is brutal, and it’s exactly the kind of thing that’s needed in fantasy these days, I think.  Then again, I think it’s needed in every genre: hard truths and characters working hard only to lose what they were so sure they’d get.  It’s a refreshing change.

There are more differences between this and the first book as well, though; it’s in multiple points of view.  Not first person, but close third.  I was somewhat thankful for that, mostly because I’ve read so many books that have failed to make first person multiple POVs sound any different from each other, and Karou, Akiva, and everyone else that the book follows throughout the chapters are very much different from each other that it’d be a shame if the author had tried it and fell into the same trap.  There’s even a chapter that follows a guard in the seraphim capitol as he watches one of the emperor’s concubines make the walk to his chambers that night.  Between that and the civilian chimera you see for much of the book, I feel like the book gives you a good grasp on just how the war affects the common person, not just the soldiers like Akiva and the people working behind the scenes like Karou.

As a final note, I’m pretty sure Akiva goes Super Saiyan near the end. I won’t give details, but it was epic and it amused me.

Book review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low. 

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages--not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.

When one of the strangers--beautiful, haunted Akiva--fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

Here we have another example of a book that’s written like a fairy tale.  It’s not the same as the Guardians series that I’ve mentioned has that type of convention, mostly because it’s clearly written for an older set (though not too much, given that this is a YA book).  I really did like this book, at the end of the day.  There’s such a sweeping mythology, and so many twists and turns that it keeps you on your toes and keeps you reading.  Or, at least it did me.  There aren’t too many books that make me want to read them rather than do things I should, like cleaning or editing (although when I have to do those I usually just end up on Tumblr).

The book also manages to make connections to things in the early pages that you might not have even paid attention to, which is the sign of a good story that was thought-out in either the planning stages or the editing stages, unlike many books that have obviously had plot points added on later when the author wanted more going on.

There were things I didn’t like about it; the relationships both seemed… rushed.  There just didn’t seem to be enough thought between “I hate him, he’s horrible” to “He’s the love of my life!” for both Karou and Madrigal, and it made the relationship, while sweet, seem artificial and not necessarily based on what was inside as it was supposed to be intended.  The relationship itself was nice, but as I said, I just didn’t feel like there was enough lead-up or getting into the character’s heads to understand why they fell in love with him so quickly.

Still, a good book, and I have the sequel up next, which I’m a lot less reluctant to read than the sequel to some of the books I’ve reviewed in the past.  Non-reluctance is a lot better than contempt for an author.